The ships and sailors of old Salem

Privateering has ceased to be a factor in civilized warfare. The swift commerce destroyer as an arm of the naval service has taken the place of the private armed ship which roamed the seas for its own profit as well for its country’s cause. To-day the United States has a navy prepared both to defend its own merchant vessels, what few there are, and to menace the trade of a hostile nation on the high seas.

When the War of the Revolution began, however, Britannia ruled the seas, and the naval force of the Colonies was pitifully feeble. In 1776 there were only thirty-one Continental cruisers of all classes in commission and this list was steadily diminished by the ill-fortunes of war until in 1782 only seven ships flew the American flag, which had been all but swept from the ocean. During the war these ships captured one hundred and ninety-six of the enemy’s craft.

On the other hand, there were already one hundred and thirty-six privateers at sea by the end of the year 1776, and their number increased until in 1781 there were four hundred and forty-nine of these private commerce destroyers in commission. This force took no fewer than eight hundred British vessels and made prisoners of twelve thousand British seamen during the war. The privateersmen dealt British maritime prestige the deadliest blow in history. It had been an undreamt of danger that the American Colonies should humble that flag which “had waved over every sea and triumphed over every rival,” until even the English and Irish Channels were not safe for British ships to traverse. The preface of the Sailor’s Vade-Mecum, edition of 1744, contained the following lofty doctrine which all good Englishmen believed, and which was destined to be shattered by a contemptible handful of seafaring rebels:

“That the Monarchs of Great Britain have a peculiar and Sovereign Authority upon the Ocean, is a Right so Ancient and Undeniable that it never was publicly disputed, but by Hugo Grotius in his Mare Liberum, published in the Year 1636, in Favour of the Dutch Fishery upon our Coasts; which Book was fully Controverted by Mr. Selden’s Mare Clausum, wherein he proves this Sovereignty from the Laws of God and of Nature, besides an uninterrupted Fruition of it for so many Ages past as that its Beginning cannot be traced out.”

When the War of 1812 was threatening, The London Statesman paid this unwilling tribute to the prowess of these Yankee privateersmen of the Revolution:

“Every one must recollect what they did in the latter part of the American War. The books at Lloyds will recount it, and the rate of assurances at that time will clearly prove what their diminutive strength was able to effect in the face of our navy, and that when nearly one hundred pennants were flying on their coast. Were we able to prevent their going in and out, or stop them from taking our trade and our store-ships, even in size of our own garrisons? Besides, were they not in the English and Irish Channels picking up our homeward bound trade, sending their prizes into French and Spanish ports to the great terror and annoyance of our merchants and shipowners?

“These are facts which can be traced to a period when America was in her infancy, without ships, without money, and at a time when our navy was not much less in strength than at present.”

At the beginning of the Revolution, Salem was sending its boys to fill the forecastles of the vessels built in its own yards and commanded by its own shipmasters. Hard by were the towns of Beverly and Marblehead whose townsmen also won their hardy livelihood on the fishing banks and along distant and perilous trading routes. When British squadrons and cruisers began to drive them ashore to starve in idleness, these splendid seamen turned their vessels into privateers and rushed them to sea like flights of hawks. It was a matter of months only before they had made a jest of the boastful lines which had long adorned the columns of the Naval Chronicle of London:

This race of seafarers had been drilled to handle cannon and muskets. Every merchantman that sailed for Europe or the West Indies carried her battery of six pounders, and hundreds of Salem men and boys could tell you stories of running fights and escapes from French and Spanish freebooters and swarming pirates. Commerce on the high seas was not a peaceful pursuit. The merchantman was equipped to become a privateer by shipping a few more guns and signing on a stronger company. The conditions of the times which had made these seamen able to fight as shrewdly as they traded may be perceived from the following extracts from the “Seaman’s Vade-Mecum,” as they appear in the rare editions published both in 1744 and 1780: “Shewing how to prepare a Merchant Ship for a close fight by disposing their Bulk-heads, Leaves, Coamings, Look-holes, etc.”

“If the Bulkhead of the Great Cabbin be well fortified it may be of singular Use; for though the Enemy may force the Steerage, yet when they unexpectedly meet with another Barricade and from thence a warm Reception by the Small-Arms, they will be thrown into great Confusion, and a Cannon ready loaded with Case-shot will do great Execution; but if this should not altogether answer the Purpose, it will oblige the Enemy to pay the dearer for their Conquest. For the Steerage may hold out the longer, and the Men will be the bolder in defending it, knowing that they have a place to retire into, and when there they may Capitulate for Good Quarter at the last Extremity....”

“... It has been objected that Scuttles (especially that out of the Forecastle) are Encouragements for Cowardice; that having no such Convenience, the Men are more resolute, because they must fight, die or be taken. Now if they must fight or die, it is highly unreasonable and as cruel to have Men to be cut to Pieces when they are able to defend their Posts no longer, and in this Case the Fate of the Hero and the Coward is alike; and if it is to fight or be taken, the Gallant will hold out to the last while the Coward (if the danger runs high), surrenders as soon as Quarter is offered; and now if there be a Scuttle, the Menace of the Enemy will make the less Impression on their Minds, and they will stand out the longer, when they know they can retire from the Fury of the Enemy in case they force their Quarters. In short, it will be as great a blemish in the Commander’s Politics to leave Cowards without a Scuttle as it will be Ingratitude to have Gallant Men to be cut to Pieces.”

“How to Make a Sally

“Having (by a vigorous defence) repulsed the Enemy from your Bulk-heads, and cutting up your Deck, it may be necessary to make a Sally to compleat your Victory; but by the Way, the young Master must use great caution before he Sally out, lest he be drawn into some Strategem to his Ruin; therefore for a Ship of but few hands it is not a Mark of Cowardice to keep the Close-Quarters so long as the Enemy is on board; and if his Men retire out of your Ship, fire into him through your Look-holes and Ports till he calls for Quarter. And if it should ever come to that, you must proceed Warily (unless you out Number him in Men) and send but a few of your Hands into his Ship while the others are ready with all their Small-arms and Cannon charged; and if they submit patiently disarm and put them down below, where there is no Powder or Weapons; but plunder not, lest your men quarrel about Trifles or be too intent in searching for Money, and thereby give the Enemy an opportunity to destroy you; and if you take the Prize (when you come into an harbor) let everything be equally shared among the Men, the Master only reserving to himself the Affections of his Men by his Generosity which with the Honour of the Victory to a brave Mind is equivalent to all the rest....”

“It is presumed that the Sally will be most Advantageous if made out of the Round-house, because having cleared the Poop, you will have no Enemy at your back; wherefore let all but two or more, according to your Number, step up into the Round-house, bringing with them all or most of the Musquets and Pistols there, leaving only the Blunderbusses. Let all the Small-Arms in the Quarters be charged, and the Cannon that flank the Decks and out of the Bulk-heads, traversing those in the Round-house, pointing towards the mizzenmast to gaul the Enemy in case of a retreat. All things being thus prepared, let a Powder-chest be sprung upon the Poop, and four Hand Granadoes tost out of the Ports, filled with Flower and fuzees of a long duration, then let the Door be opened, and in the Confusion make your Sally at once, half advancing forward and the other facing about to clear the Poop; when this is done, let them have an eye to the Chains. At the Round-house Door let two men be left to stand by the Port-cullis, each having a brace of Pistols to secure a Retreat; let then those in the Forecastle never shoot right aft, after the Sally is made, unless parallel with the Main Deck. The rest must be left to Judgment.”

Try to imagine, if you please, advice of such tenor as this compiled for the use of the captains of the transatlantic liners or cargo “tramps” of to-day, and you will be able to comprehend in some slight measure how vast has been the change in the conditions of the business of the sea, and what hazards our American forefathers faced to win their bread on quarterdeck and in forecastle. Nor were such desperate engagements as are outlined in this ancient “Seaman’s Vade-Mecum” at all infrequent. “Round-houses” and “great cabbins” were defended with “musquets,” “javalins,” “Half-pikes” and cutlasses, and “hand-granadoes” in many a hand-to-hand conflict with sea raiders before the crew of the bluff-blowed, high-popped Yankee West Indiaman had to “beat off the boarders” or make a dashing “Sally” or “capitulate for Good Quarter at the last Extremity.”

Of such, then, were the privateersmen who flocked down the wharves and among the tavern “rendezvous” of Salem as soon as the owners of the waiting vessels had obtained their commissions from the Continental Congress, and issued the call for volunteers. Mingled with the hardy seamen who had learned their trade in Salem vessels were the sons of wealthy shipping merchants of the best blood of the town and county who embarked as “gentlemen volunteers,” eager for glory and plunder, and a chance to avenge the wrongs they and their kinfolk had suffered under British trade laws and at the hands of British press gangs.

The foregoing extracts from the “Seaman’s Vade-Mecum” show how singularly fixed the language of the sea has remained through the greater part of two centuries. With a few slight differences, the terms in use then are commonly employed to-day. It is therefore probable that if you could have been on old Derby Wharf in the year of 1776, the talk of the busy, sun-browned men and boys around you would have sounded by no means archaic. The wharf still stretches a long arm into the harbor and its tumbling warehouses, timbered with great hewn beams, were standing during the Revolution. Then they were filled with cannon, small arms, rigging and ships’ stores as fast as they could be hauled hither. Fancy needs only to picture this landlocked harbor alive with square-rigged vessels, tall sloops and topsail schooners, their sides checkered with gun-ports, to bring to life the Salem of the privateersman of one hundred and forty years ago.

Shipmasters had no sooner signaled their homecoming with deep freights of logwood, molasses or sugar than they received orders to discharge with all speed and clear their decks for mounting batteries and slinging the hammocks of a hundred waiting privateersmen. The guns and men once aboard, the crews were drilling night and day while they waited the chance to slip to sea. Their armament included carronades, “Long Toms” and “long six” or “long nine” pounders, sufficient muskets, blunderbusses, pistols, cutlasses, tomahawks, boarding pikes, hand grenades, round shot, grape, canister, and double-headed shot.

When larger vessels were not available tiny sloops with twenty or thirty men and boys mounted one or two old guns and put to sea to “capture a Britisher” and very likely be taken themselves by the first English ship of war that sighted them. The prize money was counted before it was caught, and seamen made a business of selling their shares in advance, preferring the bird in the bush, as shown by the following bill of sale:

An endorsement on the back of the document records that Mr. Waters received the sum of twenty pounds for “parte of the within agreement,” which return reaped him a handsome profit on the speculation. Many similar agreements are preserved to indicate that Salem merchants plunged heavily on the risks of privateering by buying seamens’ shares for cash. The articles of agreement under which these Salem privateers of the Revolution made their warlike cruises belong with a vanished age of sea life. These documents were, in the main, similar to the following:

So immensely popular was the privateering service among the men and youth of Salem and nearby ports that the naval vessels of the regular service were hard put to enlist their crews. When the fifes and drums sounded through the narrow streets with a strapping privateersman in the van as a recruiting officer, he had no trouble in collecting a crowd ready to listen to his persuasive arguments whose burden was prize money and glory. More than once a ship’s company a hundred strong was enrolled and ready to go on board by sunset of the day the call for volunteers was made. Trembling mothers and weeping wives could not hold back these sailors of theirs, and as for the sweethearts they could only sit at home and hope that Seth or Jack would come home a hero with his pockets lined with gold instead of finding his fate in a burial at sea, or behind the walls of a British prison.

It was customary for the owners of the privateer to pay the cost of the “rendezvous,” which assembling of the ship’s company before sailing was held in the “Blue Anchor,” or some other sailors’ tavern down by the busy harbor. That the “rendezvous” was not a scene of sadness and that the privateersmen were wont to put to sea with no dust in their throats may be gathered from the following tavern bill of 1781:

There were stout heads as well as stout hearts in New England during those gallant days and it is safe to say that the crew of the Sturdy Beggar was little the worse for wear after the farewell rounds of punch, grog and “chery tod.” at the rendezvous ruled by mine host, Jonathan Archer. It was to be charged against privateering that it drew away from the naval service the best class of recruits.

An eye witness, Ebenezer Fox of Roxbury, wrote this account of the putting an armed State ship into commission in 1780:

“The coast was lined with British cruisers which had almost annihilated our commerce. The State of Massachusetts judged it expedient to build a gun vessel, rated as a twenty-gun ship, named Protector,[9] commanded by Captain John Foster Williams, to be fitted as soon as possible and sent to sea. A rendezvous was established for recruits at the head of Hancock’s Wharf (Boston) where the National flag, then bearing thirteen stars and stripes, was hoisted.

“All means were resorted to which ingenuity could devise to induce men to enlist. A recruiting officer bearing a flag and attended by a band of martial music paraded the streets, to excite a thirst for glory and a spirit of military ambition. The recruiting officer possessed the qualifications requisite to make the service alluring, especially to the young. He was a jovial, good-natured fellow, of ready wit and much broad humor. Crowds followed in his wake, and he occasionally stopped at the corners to harangue the multitude in order to excite their patriotism. When he espied any large boys among the idle crowd crowded around him he would attract their attention by singing in a comical manner:

“Shouting and huzzaing would follow and some join the ranks. My excitable feelings were aroused. I repaired to the rendezvous, signed the ship’s papers, mounted a cockade and was, in my own estimation, already half a sailor.

“The recruiting business went on slowly, however; but at length upward of 300 men were carried, dragged and driven on board; of all ages, kinds and descriptions; in all the various stages of intoxication from that of sober tipsiness to beastly drunkenness; with the uproar and clamor that may be more easily imagined than described. Such a motley group has never been seen since Falstaff’s ragged regiment paraded the streets of Coventry.”

When Captain John Paul Jones, however, was fitting out the Ranger in Portsmouth harbor in the spring of 1777, many a Salem lad forsook privateering to follow the fortunes of this dashing commander in the service of their country. On Salem tavern doors and in front of the town hall was posted the following “broadside,” adorned with a wood cut of a full-rigged fighting ship. It was a call that appealed to the spirit of the place, and it echoes with thrilling effect, even as one reads it a hundred and forty years after its proclamation:

It was of this cruise that Yankee seamen the world over were singing in later years the song of “Paul Jones and the Ranger,” which describes her escape from a British battleship and four consorts:

The privateersmen were as ready to fight, if needs be, as were these seamen that chose to sail with Paul Jones in the Continental service. All British merchantmen carried guns and heavy crews to man them, and while many of them thought it wisdom to strike their colors to a heavily armed privateer without a show of resistance, the “packet ships” and Indiamen were capable of desperate actions. The American privateers ran the gauntlet also of the king’s ships which swarmed in our waters, and they met and engaged both these and British privateers as formidable as themselves. The notable sea fights of this kind are sometimes best told in the words of the men who fought them. Captain David Ropes, of an old Salem seafaring family, was killed in a privateer action which was described in the following letter written by his lieutenant, later Captain William Gray. Their vessel was the private armed ship Jack of Salem, carrying twelve guns and sixty men.

The Nova Scotia Gazette of June 4, 1782, contained this letter as a sequel of an incident mentioned by Lieutenant Gray in the foregoing account of the action:

A very human side of warfare is shown in this correspondence, coupled with the brutal inconsistency of war, for after their rescue the officers and men of the Blonde, who felt such sincere friendship and gratitude toward the crews of two Yankee privateers, had helped to spread death and destruction aboard the luckless Jack.

The log books of the Revolutionary privateersmen out of Salem are so many fragments of history, as it was written day by day, and flavored with the strong and vivid personalities of the men who sailed and fought and sweated and swore without thought of romance in their adventurous calling. There is the log of the privateer schooner Scorpion, for example, during a cruise made in 1778. Her master has so far sailed a bootless voyage when he penned this quaint entry:

“This Book was Maid in the Lattd. of 24:30 North and in the Longtd. of 54:00 West at the Saim time having Contryary Winds for Several Days which Makes me fret a’most Wicked. Daly I praye there Maye be Change such as I Want. This Book I Maid to Keep the Accounts of my Voyage but God Knoes beste When that Will be, for I am at this Time very Empasente[10] but I hope there soon be a Change to Ease my trobled Mind. Which is my Earneste Desire and of my people. ******** (illegible) is this day taken with the palsy, but I hope will soon gete beter. On this Day I was Chaced by two Ships of War which I tuck to be Enemies, but comeing in thick Weather I have Lost Site of them and so conclude myself Escapt which is a small Good Fortune in the Midste of my Discouragementes.”

A note of Homeric mirth echoes from the past of a hundred and forty years ago in the “Journal of a Cruising Voyage in the Letter of Marque Schooner Success, commanded by Captain Philip Thrash, Commencing 4th Oct. 1778.” Captain Thrash, a lusty and formidable name by the way, filled one page after another of his log with rather humdrum routine entries; how he took in and made sail and gave chase and drilled his crew at the guns, etc. At length the reader comes to the following remarks. They stand without other comment or explanation, and leave one with a desire to know more:

“At 1-2 past 8 discovered a Sail ahead, tacked ship. At 9 tacked ship and past just to Leeward of the sail which appeared to be a damn’d Comical Boat, by G—d.”

What was it about this strange sail overhauled in midocean by Captain Philip Thrash that should have so stirred his rude sense of humor? Why did she strike him as so “damn’d Comical”? They met and went their way and the “Comical” craft dropped hull down and vanished in a waste of blue water and so passed forever from our ken. But I for one would give much to know why she aroused a burst of gusty laughter along the low rail of the letter-of-marque schooner Success.